


Omega Instincts

by khilari



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Implied/Referenced Incest, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Past Child Abuse, Prompt Fic, Touga/Nanami incest that doesn't happen but is uncomfortable anyway, it will end happily that's part of the self indulgent part, this is both dark and self indulgent but it's omegaverse what's the point if it isn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-08-11 19:57:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20159227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: There are advantages to being an Omega. No one feels threatened by an Omega, everyone knows they’re tender, delicate creatures who need to be cherished, and Touga in particular is cherished by a string of Beta girls who never quite figure out how to blame him when he breaks their hearts.The disadvantage to being an Omega is the instincts, which are inconvenient to say the least. Touga’s not fool enough to curl up in an Alpha’s arms and expect them to protect him. People, even Omegas, have to look out for their own interests, or pay the price of being someone else’s.





	1. when the sky is falling

There are advantages to being an Omega. No one feels threatened by an Omega, everyone knows they’re tender, delicate creatures who need to be cherished, and Touga in particular is cherished by a string of Beta girls who never quite figure out how to blame him when he breaks their hearts.

The disadvantage to being an Omega is the instincts, which are inconvenient to say the least. Touga’s not fool enough to curl up in an Alpha’s arms and expect them to protect him. People, even Omegas, have to look out for their own interests, or pay the price of being someone else’s.

Which is why the new champion is troubling him. Of course she’s not the only Alpha to enter the duelling game, it would be surprising if she was, but Juri isn’t interested in men, even Omegas, and Saionji, while complicated, is easily held at arms length. Tenjou Utena, a girl in search of a prince, is far, far too convenient a target for seduction. She’s also beautiful and noble and had so easily touched the power he’d been reaching for, drawing it out of the castle _just like that_, and he can’t afford to think of her as an Alpha rather than a girl. There’s a reason he prefers Betas.

* * *

Touga tries to seduce her the way he would a Beta girl, with a pretty dress and sweet words. She doesn’t like the dress but she comes to his ball, she even blushes a little as she starts to say that she came in case he was…

Then Anthy screams and Utena’s head goes up, lips drawing back from her teeth as her body goes into fight mode without waiting for her brain. The dress is off in an instant, dropped at his feet as she vaults the banister in her prince’s garb. She moves between Anthy and the crowd, growling at them, then Anthy touches her shin and she turns at once, grabbing a tablecloth to cover Anthy’s nudity.

The stab of jealousy surprises Touga. Utena lifts Anthy to her feet and for the moment both of them are smiling. He wonders whether Anthy feels something real for once behind her mask, whether it feels good to be protected when the Power of Dios isn’t at stake. Utena’s dress at his feet carries her scent, he wants to sink to his knees and bury his nose in it.

Instead he turns and walks off, looking for Nanami. He knows one of her tricks when he sees it.

* * *

Touga’s heat comes while Juri’s being teased into duelling. Convenient enough timing, since he can’t influence Juri one way or the other. He wonders whether the Ends of the World, that voice on his phone, arranged it that way, not sure whether to be thrilled or shocked at the idea his of his mysterious mentor knowing something so intimate to Touga.

It’s not that intimate, really. Anyone could check the school records for absences and guess his cycle.

He spends his heat with three Beta girls who are fascinated enough with the idea of seeing him like that to skip school for it but not actually affected by his pheremones. He could still make them leave if he decided to.

Heat, oh heat is another of the mixed blessings of being an Omega. He writhes and keens, gasping when a girl wraps her fingers around his cock and nearly sobbing with relief when another slips hers into his ass. It’s vulnerable and undignified, but for once sex really can wipe everything from his mind including the awareness of that. He’s free from every fear, every thought, floating in a cloud of pure sensation.

When they leave for the night he’s exhausted, sweaty and sticky and still glowing with desire like molten glass in his belly.

It’s Nanami who brings food and water, who pulls a bathrobe around him and helps him to the shower. She confuses him, his little sister, watching him gulp down water with rigid displeasure at the knowledge of those departing girls. Nanami is a Beta, but she acts like an Alpha, like his Alpha, always trying to drive away rivals and standing guard over him when he’s weak.

Except she’d drowned his kitten, and she’d been a child, but he doesn’t believe an Alpha would have done it. Drowned another Alpha’s kitten, maybe, for spite or anger, but not an Omega’s, not their own Omega’s. Seeing Touga taking care of something would have made an Alpha want to protect it with their life.

Still, though, she’s his sister, and sometimes he does need care enough to risk a modicum of trust.

* * *

Sparring with Saionji is almost cruel, especially with Touga just out of heat. Saionji’s brow is a flat line, eyes dark with frustrated instincts, even more so now he doesn’t have Anthy to unleash a torrent of pent up Alpha feelings on and then punish when she doesn’t appreciate it enough. With Touga he forces those instincts down although they show miserably in his face. The dojo is Saionji’s refuge, how much must he want to chase away their audience? To close the door and bring blankets, hold Touga safe in the safest place he knows?

Saionji shouts to mark his attack, not to scare off the watching girls, and he makes his stroke without holding back, only distracted enough to give Touga an easy win. When he turns away his face is screwed up with the frustration of loss on top of the other frustrations he’s enduring.

They’d been too close, too young, before either of them knew what they were. Saionji’s instincts tell him to claim, his experience of Touga — cool and superior, carefully so — tells him he can’t. Maybe it’s shame that makes him unwilling to pursue an Omega he can’t even best, let alone protect. Maybe it’s something deeper, an unwillingness to lose the rags of their friendship, or even the awareness that Touga doesn’t want him to.

Either way, Saionji’s wound up enough that he’s probably about to go after Anthy.

When he’s offered a way to claim her tonight, a way he will be naive enough to think legitimate, he won’t stand a chance.

* * *

Touga knows what he’s done to Saionji as soon as he does it. To strike out at a rival Alpha in a rage, only to find an Omega he’s half mated to on the end of his sword? If anything can destroy Saionji it will be this, and Touga doesn’t care. Utena’s arms are around him, the unconscious Anthy forgotten behind her, and she smells of musky Alpha and concern.

He murmurs, ‘Wasn’t your prince a guy like me?’ and almost regrets it. Can she be a princess to a prince and an Alpha to an Omega at the same time? Can he be an Omega to an Alpha and still seek power in his own right? What he wants to do is lie down and let her fuss, let her pull his shirt aside and try to bandage his wound. But then she’d see how shallow it is, and she’s not really his Alpha to fret over even a minor wound and not question his dramatic half-swoon into her arms. Reluctantly he pushes himself away. ‘The school hospital,’ he whispers.

She blinks, seeming to come out of a trance, and blushes deeply. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘I’ll help you down the stairs.’

* * *

The exchange diary smells of Saionji and Anthy. More of Saionji, he tends to keep it with him, under his shirt and close to his heart, but the smell of tea and roses and faint Omega pheremones lingers too from all the times Anthy’s handled it. If she actually cared about Saionji it’s the kind of thing she’d keep close, curl up around in her nest when she wanted comfort.

Touga burns it as soon as Saionji’s out of sight.

* * *

Anthy is going to want the kitten back, there’s no way she’d give one of her precious animals over to Touga for more than a day or two as a ploy. Which is a shame, because it’s sitting on his shoulder batting happily at his hair and Touga hasn’t had anything to love in a long time.

He’s disappointed when Utena responds to him laughingly telling the kitten to cut it out by asking if he doesn’t like cats. Of course she’d take everything so literally, she probably doesn’t see him as capable of caring for anything. What feelings, exactly, did he hope the sight of him playing with a kitten would stir in her?

At least he knows what feelings it’s stirring in Nanami, long buried guilt and horror. Here she is, right on cue, to protect the relationship she killed for. There’s a thrill to it when she throws the rose at Utena’s feet, even though Nanami’s not an Alpha, even though she’s his sister. He wonders whether Anthy ever enjoys being the Rose Bride, ever likes seeing Alphas clash over her. He knows she’s not as helpless as she plays, his co-conspirator. Is this what she gets out of her bizarre slavery?

* * *

Nanami goes from play-acting an Alpha to a lost child as soon as he moves to comfort her, the rage that drove her to nearly kill Utena melting away at a touch. He dredges up the memories of when she’d been young enough to waken his own nurturing instincts, when he’d put her in pretty dresses and picked apples for her. Before that even, when she’d been a neglected baby in a dirty apartment and he’d been the one to change diapers and fetch bottles. Maybe that was why he’d developed so young, why he’d started to show the Omega traits that had taken him from useless child to something potentially valuable.

No need to think about that now.

It’s the perfect position to put himself in, both protective prince and nurturing Omega as he comforts his little sister, and for once Utena looks at him with approval.

* * *

It’s not hard to keep Utena off balance after that. When he corners Anthy in the greenhouse Utena runs in, teeth bared, only to hesitate before shouting at him when she gets close enough for her nose to remind her he’s another Omega and not a rival Alpha. She doesn’t know whether to consider him her protector and prince, an Omega in need of protecting himself, or a rival for Anthy, and she’s not smart enough to sit down with her instincts and memories, to unravel them until she figures out why she’s confused.

It’s almost too easy to let his sword drop for a moment and see her instantly falter, unwilling to aim a sword at him even to shear his rose, then flick his own up and shear hers in a spray of petals.

Afterwards he demonstrates to her what Anthy is. ‘You like being the Rose Bride don’t you, Anthy? You don’t need friends,’ and watches Utena crumple at Anthy’s answers.

‘It’s natural for you to want to protect,’ he tells Utena. ‘But it’s wasted on Anthy. You can’t protect her because she doesn’t care what happens to her. You can’t give her what she wants because she only wants what you tell her to want. Take this chance to be a normal girl, you should never have been mixed up in something you understand so little.’

Anthy follows him demurely away from the arena.

* * *

Utena comes to school in a dress, glassy-eyed and quiet. He wonders whether he’s broken her, whether she and Anthy were more bonded than he’d known.

‘What did you two do together?’ he asks Anthy, stopping in a quiet corner.

‘Nothing I haven’t done with other duellists, Touga-sama.’

‘That could be anything. Did you have sex?’

‘No, Touga-sama.’

‘Then she shouldn’t be affected like this.’ Maybe she’s just depressed at losing, at having her image of herself as a prince shattered, and it’s nothing to do with having a bonded mate ripped away from her. Just hurt pride.

In which case she’ll be fine in a few days and he should take the opportunity while it lasts.

Would it be better to approach her as a man or an Omega? The latter is tempting, when she’s reeling from losing Anthy. _I would appreciate your love and care, I would tell you what I wanted instead of making you guess for nothing, just because you’re not a prince doesn’t mean you can’t make someone happy._ It’s too risky when she’s still his rival, he needs to keep her believing she can’t beat him. So he leans over her instead of kneeling at her feet, although he makes sure to lean close enough that she can smell him.

She won’t talk, won’t look at him, but neither does she push him off when he wraps an arm around her shoulder or strokes her arm. Eventually he’ll be able to coax an agreement out of her, or simply continue under the assumption she’s agreed while she’s still dazed enough to go along with that. He’s working on it when that Beta girl with a thing for Alphas, the one who follows Utena around and has a ridiculous crush on Saionji, interferes. Utena doesn’t care either way when she shouts at Touga, but when she shouts at _Anthy_ it makes Utena hit out at her, snarling, all her lassitude gone.

The girl looks up with a pointed grin, even though she must surely feel as jealous as Touga does that only Anthy merits a reaction. ‘Looks like you _can_ still react to some things,’ she says.

Touga decides to withdraw.

* * *

When Touga returns to the balcony where he left Anthy for a tryst with a more interesting girl he finds her holding a handkerchief. It disappears into her pocket as soon as she sees him and he realises he must really have taken her by surprise, that she didn’t hear him coming.

‘What was that?’ he asks.

‘Just a handkerchief, Touga-sama,’ she says, standing up.

‘Show me.’ She takes it out and holds it while he bends over to see the embroidered letters. It’s barely necessary, the handkerchief has been in Utena’s pocket all day and he’s becoming far too sensitive to her scent. ‘Give it to me,’ he says. He wonders whether Anthy will resist, she’d been sitting there holding it for comfort as if she had real feelings after all. But she sets it delicately in his palm with no emotion showing in her eyes.

* * *

It’s Touga, not Anthy, that Utena comes for, with a little bit of a march back in her stride and a bit of determination back in her eyes, but she comes to fight him, not to accept his invitation for a date.

After he proved how little Anthy cared, how little Utena understood, still Utena stands on the arena in her girl’s uniform as if she couldn’t even spare the time to go home and change. They stand across from one another, girl prince and Omega prince, both contending for a role designed for Alpha males. The difference is that Touga knows this game, knows the rules he has to play within, _he_ took the time to find out while she just flung herself in as if noble intentions could carry all before them.

Pathetic.

The sight of Anthy on her knees with her mouth to Touga’s sword makes Utena wince and turn aside. Touga may not have been able to make her want him, but he still owns the one she does want, and the sword glowing red in his hands is proof he will continue to do so. He’s won this duel before it even begins.

Her sword is sheared, but still she fights, twisting her body to protect her rose as he slices her uniform to shreds. Still she stands, catching his sword with the hilt of her own, growling softly with effort and frustration. The Sword of Dios bites into the hilt as easily as it had cut the blade. If he has to deprive her of her weapon one slice at a time, he can do that. The power he’s been seeking so long is finally in his hand, glowing like molten glass, and it’s impossible to lose.

And then, like a candle being blown out, it’s simply gone.

He doesn’t _understand_. It was his. All his power, all his plans and secret knowledge, _why hadn’t he known this could happen?_

As his rose scatters he sees the tear on Anthy’s cheek and realises that even she was moved by Utena’s bravery, by her desire to protect. That good intentions and determination have carried the day after all, and in that case _what does it mean for him?_

* * *

Touga builds a nest in blues and greys. Blankets and cushions, bedspreads and even coats, he raids the house for the colours that will best set him off dramatically and builds his nest in the centre of the ballroom. He sets the record player running and lies down in his nest, arms spread slightly and hair draped around him, like a picture of Ophelia or the Lady of Shallot.

He lets himself sink into darkness more than comfort. Was this how Utena had felt, adrift with everything she’d built herself around proven wrong? She’d come back though, she’d fought again, and he can’t imagine trying. Too much of his power lies in perception and now she knows she can beat him. Now he knows she can beat him.

No one comes except Nanami, to coax him tentatively with food. No one will come, although he wishes they would, no Alpha to tell him that if he’s lost the confidence to fight then he can stop, they’ll look after him now. Utena despises him and he drove Saionji away.

No one is going to come.

* * *

Time passes without him knowing until he finds himself in heat, for the first time without anyone to help him through it. He can’t bear the thought of callling anyone, either, talking some girls he barely knows into bed with him for his own comfort the way he always has. Instead he writhes against the pillows of his nest, building the heat inside him more than relieving it, until it’s agony rather than pleasure. He can hear Nanami’s footsteps stop outside the door, almost smell her with his senses in overdrive, and he wonders viciously whether she’s enjoying his painful keens since she always hated knowing someone was relieving him.

When she comes to give him food and water her eyes are wide with concern. In desperation he considers pulling her down into his nest, treating her like the Alpha she’s always seemed to want to be, and then he sees how her hand shakes as she tosses a bathrobe to him and he turns away. Pulling it tight around him he stands shakily to go and shower.

* * *

For once Touga really doesn’t want to be at a party, unfortunately he also doesn’t have the energy to stop Nanami throwing one. This isn’t even like the time she made him move his nest to the bedroom so she could throw a party for a necklace or something, she’s forced him to attend this one. Fortunately being charming at parties no matter how he feels is something he was trained in very young and it’s easy to fall back on ingrained manners.

Then he spots the flash of pink hair and realises that Utena’s here, she’s really here, she came after all. He makes his way to her slowly, politely stopping to return greetings and compliments, but he reaches her. She turns to look at him, forthright gaze assessing rather than sympathetic.

‘You look well,’ she says.

Does he? ‘You look more beautiful than ever,’ he says.

‘And you haven’t changed at all.’ She turns away from him but he catches her arm.

‘You don’t like parties,’ he says, by her ear. ‘Why come if you didn’t want to see me?’

‘You’re getting the wrong idea again,’ she says, pulling away stiffly. He’s not sure about _again_ he thinks he had the right idea before, but her attraction to him really has fizzled out with the discovery he’s not a prince. ‘I just wanted to be sure you weren’t ill or something.’

‘I’m honoured you cared even that much.’ Even she might be able to catch the bitter thread beneath those words. ‘What would you have done if I was?’

‘Um.’ She seriously considers the question, rubbing at the back of her head like she’s in school and got called on to answer a difficult maths problem. ‘Hoped you got well soon, I guess.’

‘Not even flowers this time?’

‘After all the trouble that caused? What would you even want me to do?’

‘If I was ill? You could bring grapes, or tea, or offer to sit with me.’

There’s too much hunger in his voice and she looks up at him with her lips parted slightly in surprise. Food. Drink. Companionship and protection. ‘You really are an Omega.’

‘Did you doubt it?’

‘You don’t act like one.’

‘And you don’t act like a girl.’

‘That’s not… of course I’m a girl.’ She’s rubbing the back of her head again, embarrassed now. ‘That is… I guess you’re just as much an Omega… it’s not like either of us is…’

He laughs, the laugh he uses to cut things off, smooth things over, make it look like he’s still in control. ‘You’re always so sincere,’ he says.

She turns away sharply, embarrassed for a different reason now, he’s made her feel like a fool. ‘I should have known better than to think you were,’ she says.

This time he lets her go, because the alternative is to tell her he was, he really was, and to let her finish whatever she was about to say.

* * *

It’s raining and Touga is wet. This should bother him more but it feels like very abstract information. Nanami will come and find him soon, and then he will be less wet, but also he will have to go home.

Out here the air is fresh and it feels natural to linger among the trees when he doesn’t want to be indoors. Once slipping away like this would have meant meeting up with Saionji, although maybe not in the rain. Or maybe even then, Saionji trailing along arguing that they’re _getting wet, Touga_ but following anyway. He wonders where Saionji is now and the answer is, probably not in the woods around Ohtori no matter how much he likes camping.

‘Um…’

The girl who approaches Touga isn’t Nanami, although he thinks he’s seen her with Nanami. He doesn’t really hear what she says as she holds out the umbrella, but the intent is obvious, and he lets her hold it over him feeling oddly grateful. Maybe, he thinks, Nanami will arrive to find him already being taken care of and that will serve her right for dragging him to a party.

* * *

The girl is in his room, standing over his nest. For some reason she still has an umbrella.

There is something wrong with this, but it’s difficult to pull himself from the darkness he’s sunk back into, difficult to make any sense of it. He’s still struggling to react when she holds the umbrella over him and leans forward.

‘Touga-sama, from now on look only at me.’

The sword rips from his chest, leaving him spasming around it. It feels like having his insides pulled out into the open, it hurts but the vulnerability is worse, the sense that someone is touching something that should be safely inside his skin. He doesn’t fight it, whatever’s happening is happening whether he wants it to or not, it will only go on longer if he fights.

When she pulls the sword away he falls.

* * *

Touga wakes alone in the dark. It’s nighttime now, nothing but cold moonlight falling through the windows to cast arched shadows on the floor. He curls up tighter and rubs his cheek against a cushion. It’s not safe here, but he can’t think of anywhere that would be safer.

‘Mr President.’ The voice is deep, mellifluous, and somehow familiar. When Touga opens his eyes again there’s a man standing in front of the windows who wasn’t there before, elegantly sillhouetted in the moonlight.

Touga sits up cautiously, adopting an elegant pose himself, and forcing his hands not to knead or clutch at the blankets around him. ‘Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting visitors,’ he says.

The man walks closer and Touga stands up to meet him. He’s tall, taller than Touga which isn’t something that Touga’s used to these days, and he smells strongly of both roses and Alpha. ‘I apologise for dropping by unannounced, but I thought it was about time we met.’

That voice is the voice on the other end of the phone, the cadence Touga’s been imitating without ever meeting its originator. ‘Ends of the World,’ he says, respectfully. ‘I’m honoured to meet you at last.’ Is he in trouble for abandoning the Student Council? Abandoning everything?

A shadowy hand takes Touga’s arm and gently starts guiding him towards the door. ‘A new stage of this game will be starting soon,’ says the Ends of the World. ‘Are you recovered enough to lead it?’

‘Lead it? Am I meant to be the first?’

‘Not the first to fight, no. But our first duellist will likely need some encouragement.’

‘Miki?’

Outside the mansion the air is cool, fresh with the rain yesterday, and Touga takes a grateful breath. The hand on his elbow lets go and the man moves to lean against a gleaming car, it’s more black than red in the night but somehow the colour bleeds through as if it’s too intense _not_ to be red. Touga can see the man better now, the pale hair and dark skin, familiar from somewhere but obviously not from phone calls with a man Touga never saw.

‘No, we’ll follow the same pattern as before. You have quite a hold on our opening act.’

‘But Saionji is…’ Touga quickly looks aside, wiping the startled look from his face while the shadows of his hair hide it. ‘I see. So he returned to the school.’

‘No one told you?’ Ends of the World’s voice is pitying and slightly amused. For Touga, who always knows everything about the game and its players, to not even know his best friend had returned? Pathetic. Ends of the World’s hand strokes down the side of the car and opens the passenger door. ‘Come for a ride ,’ he says.

Touga can feel the engine throbbing beneath him and he feels more alive, more awake, than he has in weeks. As they reach the road the streetlights strobe across Ends of the Worlds’ face and Touga studies it. ‘You’re the chairman,’ he observes. ‘Himemiya Anthy’s brother.’

‘Acting chairman,’ says Akio, mouth curling up into a self-satisfied smile. ‘You worked well with my dear little sister.’

‘And with you as well?’

‘Of course.’

What happened earlier today? Was this man behind that, too, behind sending someone to rip Touga’s heart out of his chest? If he was does that make it only a part of the duelling game, a step along the way? It doesn’t do to complain about the sacrifices you make on the way to power. The car thrums the way the sword had during that brief shining moment when Touga had held all of Anthy’s power in his hand. So, Utena’s way isn’t the only way to gain such power, and Akio clearly knows better how to use it.

‘Where are we going?’ Touga asks.

Akio smiles at him, sharp and strong. ‘The Ends of the World,’ he says.


	2. poison water from the fountain of youth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains porn and the porn contains Akio.

‘That was an indecent proposal, Mr Chairman,’ Touga says. An impossible one, really. Touga’s not only too young to drive, he doesn’t know how.

‘I encourage independence in my students, Mr President.’

The car is purring back towards the academy now, too fast as always. Touga’s getting used to talking to Akio like this instead of on the phone, with Akio and the car both exuding the scent of Alpha pheremones and sex. So far Touga hasn’t added to those scents, but he feels it coming. There are advantages in being desired, in having a way to keep the attention of someone so powerful, even if it’s at odds with the role of successor that Touga wants most to play. Pretending to be an Alpha won’t get him anywhere, he’ll use what he has.

Touga leans back in his seat, body languid, and finds he almost absorbs the throb of the engine like that, his body moved by it like waves. ‘You’ll find I’m not always so well behaved.’

‘I can believe it.’ Akio sounds almost fond. They pass through Ohtori’s gate — were they so close already? — and he parks outside the tower. He opens Touga’s door and holds a hand out to him. ‘Come inside.’

Inside is as beautiful and sparse as the rest of Ohtori, graceful arches of white marble letting in sunset light. The only thing out of place is the huge black machine the room seems to be built around. Touga’s gaze flicks to it, but he can’t identify it and doesn’t want to ask. Akio lets go of his hand and wraps an arm around him, pulling him close and kissing him, leaving Touga’s lips tender. ‘Go and sit down,’ he says.

Touga obeys, sitting gracefully on one of the white couches. He opens his shirt and draws one leg up to sit diagonally, tipping his head back to let the light touch him. The couch smells as strongly of Akio as the car — he’s surprised it doesn’t smell of bleach if Akio has that much sex on a white couch — and beneath that the salt-sweet scent of Anthy. Shutters slam down over the windows and Touga stops himself from reacting to the sudden dark, keeping his eyes on Akio as the machine starts up and stars swirl across the ceiling.

‘The real ones would have been out soon,’ Touga observes.

‘These ones are prettier,’ Akio says. He sits down, propping himself up with a hand bare inches from Touga’s hip and leaning over him. ‘As they would appear once the sun was truly gone, not just after dusk, as they would appear with no light pollution, no street lights. A perfect image.’

‘So you seek perfection?’

Akio wraps his free arm around Touga’s back and Touga, no longer needing to support his own weight, lifts his hands to Akio’s buttons.

‘Don’t we all?’ Akio says.

He kisses Touga again, making Touga’s hands fumble on the buttons, making him fight to remain cool. Akio’s mouth is hot, gentle but firm, moving against Touga’s mouth as if it belongs there. No hesitation or uncertainty, just experience, the knowledge of exactly what is wanted.

Touga closes his eyes, one hand slipping inside Akio’s shirt to skim the hard muscles of his chest as the other undoes another button. He breathes in deeply. ‘I can smell your sister,’ he says, daringly.

Akio chuckles, a soft rumble through both of them. ‘Good nose, Mr President.’ He somehow slips Touga’s shirt off while still supporting Touga’s weight, and surely that’s not physically possible. He lays Touga back on the couch and touches Touga’s nipple, twists it gently, and it doesn’t seem to matter much any more. ‘We’re very close, Anthy and I,’ Akio whispers. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

Touga’s not sure he does. Is that the power Akio has over her, the reason she’s the Rose Bride? Or is it something to do with what they both are, the power they both have, the sword and the castle in the sky? Is _that_ necessary to reach it, is that something… is that something he even could do? Akio and Anthy are Alpha male and Omega female, like the prince and princess in a fairy tale, but Beta is one step up from Omega even though Nanami’s a girl. Which one of them would even…?

Akio’s hand brushes Touga’s stomach, sending a wave of fluttering heat through it, and settles on the bulge of his cock through his trousers. Touga moans, pressing up against it as he slips his own hand down to unbutton his fly. Akio’s hand drifts to Touga’s hip, to take hold of his waistband and pull his trousers away in one too easy motion. His underpants follow and he’s bare, naked on a white couch like a human sacrifice or the model for a renaissance painting.

Akio is still leaning over him, open prince uniform glowing white against the false night sky. Touga reaches up to circle his thumb around Akio’s nipple and is rewarded with a breathy sigh. There’s something here, about having someone so much bigger leaning over him, being engulfed in the heat and scent of Akio’s body, that is both exciting and unnerving. Akio’s fingers are skilful, playing Touga’s body artfully, and Touga’s nerves fizz like champagne. It feels so good that he can’t help gasping, head thrown back. He slips Akio’s fly undone blindly, reaching for his cock. It’s hard, longer and thicker than Touga’s own, leaking pre-cum over his fingers.

When Akio shifts him he’s expecting it, they move gracefully together, Touga’s legs sliding up over Akio’s hips as Akio goes from leaning over him to kneeling between his legs. Akio’s finger, cool with lube, circles his hole and then slips easily inside, preparing him. Touga moans and pushes back against it, wanting more. Then Akio changes the angle and for a moment Touga’s seeing stars the projector didn’t cast.

He’s more than ready when Akio’s cock slips in but shudders anyway, pleasure and something colder mixing like dye in water. The base of Akio’s cock swells with each thrust, not uncomfortable but filling him up from the inside, driving everything else from his awareness even as anxiety clenches him tighter around it. He tries to focus on where the tip of it is hitting instead, on the waves of white-hot pleasure coursing through him, gasping like he’s drowning in all of it.

Orgasm takes him hard, the waves of pleasure building with each thrust becoming first an incandescent fountain and then a lake, endless and still, a pressure that draws out forever as the throes of the strongest orgasm pass. Suddenly Akio’s presence is claustrophobic, the scent of him overwhelming, the knot at the base of his cock trapping Touga, holding him from the inside and reminding him through all the lazy throb of pleasure that it’s literally too late to say no. He tips his head back again, feigning pleasure now more than feeling it, even as he tries to drift into it and let this anxiety fall away. Instead he drifts away from pleasure and fear at once.

Akio shifts against him, wraps an arm around his back to lift him closer, and kisses him almost gently, as if he’s trying to be reassuring. Touga smiles and manages to relax more out of determination than anything.

‘Was that good enough misbehaviour, Mr Chairman?’ he asks.

‘Your behaviour was exemplary,’ Akio replies. ‘Would you like to stay here a few days? There is much l could show you.’

Touga tenses, the knot inside him seeming larger as he does even though he knows it’s softening now. He’ll be able to slip free soon. ‘Later, perhaps,’ he says, regretfully. ‘I’m too close to heat.’

‘I know,’ Akio answers.

So that’s what Akio wants. If Touga’s going to be shown Akio’s world he’d rather be coherent than dazed with hormones, but obviously Akio’s less than interested in his mind right now. He waits until he can pull away and start to gather up his clothes to reply. ‘I’d sooner not be pregnant before leaving high school.’

‘You’re not on birth control?’

‘I haven’t needed it.’ He’s only fertile in heat and he hardly ever has sex with Alphas anyway.

Akio smiles at him, a lazy, self-satisfied smile that’s not too far from some of Touga’s own. ‘You should consider it,’ he says.

‘I could stay for a few days next week,’ Touga offers, pulling his trousers on. What he wants, rather than what Akio wants, although he doubts Akio will object to having sex with him when he’s not in heat. Touga won’t object to that either.

‘I’m afraid it won’t be possible,’ Akio says. ‘Anthy and her friend are going to be moving in.’

Touga doesn’t need to ask who that friend is, as far as he’s aware Anthy only has the one. Utena, here? Does that mean she’s favoured? Of course she’s favoured, she’s been the champion this long. ‘She’s special, isn’t she?’ he says.

‘She’s a girl who saw something eternal.’

Touga turns, face slack with shock, to see that the expression in Akio’s eyes is oddly wistful, staring up at the stars above him. ‘It was you,’ Touga says, mind filling with a church, a thunderstorm, a coffin, the feeling of hair sliding through his fingers like silk. The way she herself had slid through his fingers, unsaveable. ‘You found her back then. What did she see?’

‘Something for only her to know.’

Touga regains his composure and swings his shirt around his shoulders. ‘I understand.’

So Utena, the girl in the coffin, did have special knowledge for all Akio seemed determined to keep her stumbling around in the dark — no, charging blindly into the dark. But Touga was the one in Akio’s confidence and Akio’s bed.

* * *

‘What do you want?’ Touga asks Saionji. ‘What do you desire?’ Aside from Touga himself, sitting there in a car smelling of sex with his shirt undone and billowing around him. Touga knows Saionji wants that, but Saionji recoils.

‘What’s the point of asking things like that?’ he says. ‘First of all, I don’t trust you.’

‘Hey now, aren’t you my one and only friend?’

‘True friendship doesn’t exist in this world.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I know so.’

Bitter, bitter, he knows what Touga did to him, he knows that Touga knows what he did to him, and yet he’s here. It’s Anthy he chose to give up on, deciding he had too much pride to fight for her on someone else’s command, but still he followed Touga into Akio’s car.

‘I wonder if you really believe that,’ Touga says.

It’s the castle that he taunts Saionji with, the castle said to hold eternity, the possibility of something eternal. The thing the girl in the coffin had wanted, the girl Saionji pretends to barely remember as if either of them could forget. What Saionji wants is eternal friendship, or at least that’s one thing he wants. To return to a time when they were children, when instincts and desire never intruded on them, and stay that way forever. The other thing he wants he still flinches from, still such a child in his tall body.

‘The one who saved her that night was Akio-san,’ Touga says. ‘She was saved because he showed her something eternal.’

Saionji lunges forward, grabbing at their driver’s shoulder. So impulsive, to grab as easily at a god as a girl. ‘What the hell are you?’ he demands.

‘Doesn’t the throb of the engine feel good?’

’What are you talking about?’

‘I will show the Ends of the World to you, now, as well.’

* * *

Saionji is leaning against the hood of the car, Akio sitting on it behind him and pulling Saionji back to lean against him as he unbuttons Saionji’s shirt. Touga stands in front of both of them, watching the blush on Saionji’s cheeks, the way he’s turned aside but glancing up at Touga through his eyelashes. Touga leans forward and runs a hand through hair that curls around his fingers like it wants to keep them. Saionji inhales suddenly and lets it out shakily, tongue touching his lips.

‘Do I smell good?’ Touga teases.

Saionji’s lips flatten into a line and Akio chuckles. The last of Saionji’s buttons comes loose and his shirt falls open, billowing around him. Touga can almost see Saionji’s heart beating beneath his bare chest. He puts his hand out to feel it instead and Saionji frowns but doesn’t push him away.

‘You’ve stopped going after Anthy,’ Touga whispers.

Saionji shakes his head, frowning but dazed. ‘She didn’t want me.’

‘Of course she didn’t. She doesn’t want anything,’ Touga says. ‘She’s just a doll.’

Saionji relaxes slightly. It’s an argument he likes, salve to pride and conscience both. She didn’t really reject him, if she doesn’t care for anyone, and if she doesn’t have feelings he didn’t hurt her.

Akio’s hand slips down to Saionji’s fly, but Saioni presses his legs together and Akio retreats. Because Saionji’s not ready for it and the point is to make him feel adult and included, not scare him off completely, or because he’s an Alpha and gets to say no? Touga tweaks Saionji’s nipple lightly and is rewarded with a gasp even as Saionji twists away. There’s a way Touga can see past Saionji’s skittishness but it risks a balance he’s been holding for years. He catches Akio’s eye and Akio smiles at him, satisfied and expectant.

Touga kneels between Saionji’s legs, hand trailing from Saionji’s chest to his fly as he does. Saionji doesn’t resist him this time but the expression on his face is awed. It’s cute, as if having Touga so close in a way he’d never dared to imagine has returned him to the little boy with the anxious eyes, following Touga into a place he’s not quite sure he’s allowed. That’s not what they need, though, they need a duellist.

Touga slips Saionji’s cock free, thick and hard in his hands even limp. When Saionji makes a half-protesting sound he tips his sharpest smile up at him. ‘Am I going too fast for you?’ he purrs. Saionji shakes his head, eyebrows drawing together, anger and desire coalescing into a mask of adulthood.

Touga leans forward and licks the tip of Saionji’s cock, feeling it stir in response as he does. He can smell Saionji so strongly, more strongly than he ever has before, even Akio’s scent can’t compete with it this close. Saionji doesn’t smell of roses at all, only unscented soap and his own musk. Touga takes the tip of Saionji’s hardening cock into his mouth, hands working at the base, and Saionji groans. To Touga, glancing up at Saionji through strands of Touga’s own red hair, he seems enormous, pale and slender but rising into the sky like a tree, while Akio behind him is that sky, the background against which he rises.

‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ Akio whispers into Saionji’s ear like a salesman.

‘Ah.’ Saionji tries to form words between gasps. ‘Yes.’

His knot is swelling between Touga’s hands and Touga pulls his mouth away, running his hands down the length of Saionji’s cock, both finishing him off and pointing it away from himself. Come spurts across the ground and Akio pulls the shuddering Saionji back against him, hands caressing his chest.

Touga rests his head against Saionji’s thigh and watches.

* * *

‘The Sword of Dios has vanished,’ Touga says, as if he needs to confirm what he’s just seen happen. It winked out in Utena’s hand, a flash and then gone, like the power he’d held once except this time it’s the sword itself that’s gone. He wonders whether he’d looked that astonished. Still Utena holds out, as she had against Saionji before with a bamboo hilt, as she had against him with the hilt of Juri’s sword, as if she can’t imagine giving up.

Saionji’s driving her back though and Touga has to wonder if he’s actually going to _win_. He hadn’t prepared himself for that, they’d puffed Saionji up with false confidence not given him anything substantial, but Saionji’s been the champion before. Won’t it only make things easier, to fight him instead of Utena? The balance between them hasn’t been tipped _that_ far by one blow job.

Then Anthy flings herself forward, clutching at Utena’s chest, and Saionji manages to arrest his blade mid-blow as he hadn’t when it had been Touga. Anthy puts her hand to Utena’s chest, light gathering around it, and Touga watches the hilt come free with almost the same excitement he’d felt when he first watched Dios come down from the castle. Utena always surprises him. How astonishing to find she has a sword inside her, a noble blade shaped like the sword of Dios itself.

The final clash is a foregone conclusion, but he’s not expecting the car screeching across the arena as Saionji’s petals scatter. Touga can’t help leaning forward, fingers pressing hard on the opera glasses. No blood. Saionji can’t be too badly hurt, just crushed by loss in a more literal sense than usual, and Touga relaxes. Saionji looks like a bug, splayed out on the arena, and Touga can’t believe he’d knelt between his legs the night before.

‘Ah, Saionji,’ he sighs. ‘After everything I did to be your friend.’

* * *

The first Touga learns of Ruka’s return to the school is when he sees him standing there in a uniform as white as Touga’s own with his arm around a girl from the fencing club. Touga thinks Ruka hasn’t noticed him at first but then his eyes flick sideways, watching Touga watching him. Ruka whispers something to the girl and she runs off, neatly dismissed.

‘Touga,’ Ruka says. ‘It’s been a long time. I missed you at the Student Council meeting.’

‘I don’t usually attend those,’ Touga says. ‘Did anything happen worth my while?’

‘Not really.’ Ruka seems amused to dismiss his own reintroduction to the council and the duels so lightly. ‘But I would like to talk with you.’

‘The Student Council balcony?’

Touga falls into step with Ruka as they walk. They must look like a matched pair, blue and red in almost identical uniforms, walking with easy confidence and grace, and yet Touga feels like he’s following. Ruka’s older, only a year but still, and an Alpha, although his scent is different now. Subdued, too weak to attract an Omega, which means a biological warning that he’s not a good mate or potential parent.

‘I take it you recovered fully before being allowed to return to school?’ Touga says as he presses the button to call the elevator.

The look Ruka gives Touga is calculating. ‘Do I smell wrong?’

‘A little.’ Touga waves a hand. ‘Although I doubt you have much interest in attracting me and it’s not as if Beta girls wil notice. Or Alphas.’

‘I like to have options.’ The elevator arrives and they sit at the table, around them the air is filled with black and white feathers floating on the breeze.

Touga waits. Ruka’s reappearance in the school has to be connected to Juri, to her upcoming duel, and yet Ruka is too strong a contender to be brought in _just_ for Juri. So far the only Alpha male contender has been Saionji, who is already out of the running and was too immature to really be a threat in the first place. There’s a decent chance Ruka could beat Utena, but if he’s really Akio’s pick then why wasn’t he here before? Was it really his illness? Do such things interfere with even Akio’s plans?

‘I assume you have more contact with the Ends of the World than letters?’ Ruka says.

‘I do.’ Far, far more. Only one other duelist could claim to have Ends of the World’s favour the way Touga does and she remains completely ignorant of it.

‘I intend to bring Juri into the arena,’ Ruka says.

‘Not yourself?’

‘That too.’ Ruka smiles. ‘It’s not important, I won’t be winning. But Juri might.’

‘He’d be pleased by that.’ Akio simulataneously favours Utena and tries to get rid of her, Touga’s not even sure which of those things is truer.

‘I need to be the next duelist and then for Juri to be the one after. I’ll call you at the right time and you can pass word along.’

‘So long as Ends of the World agrees.’ Touga is, after all, his and not Ruka’s. If he’s going to serve a prince it will be the real one.

* * *

Touga leans back, the throb of the engine and strobe of the streetlights familiar. ‘He says he’s not going to win,’ he tells Akio. ‘So what is he after?’

‘Winning means different things to different people,’ Akio says.

‘He won’t catch Juri’s interest, not even if he gives her a miracle.’

‘She is hard to please, isn’t she?’ Akio says, the speedometer creeping up a little higher. ‘Even Anthy doesn’t seem to be her type.’

Touga sneaks a glance at his face. So, had that been the plan? An Omega girl to be her bride, to share her dorm with no questions asked, no possibility of rejection or betrayal. Yet she’d completely failed to take the bait. No Omega girl would do for Juri except the one kept in her locket. ‘So, where does Tsuchiya Ruka fit in?’

‘He’ll have to make a place for himself,’ Akio answers.

* * *

Ruka makes a place for himself by seducing Shiori, to Touga’ amusement. A replay of Shiori’s own ploy when she’d gone after someone she thought Juri loved to win Juri’s attention even if it was hatred, except Ruka has the right person.

When the car ride comes it’s Shiori who Touga does his speech for, Ruka is already in the car, already knowing where they’re going. Touga’s not sure whether sending him with a “message” for Shiori was an attempt to establish that Ruka’s above him in the pecking order, or just Ruka amusing himself. Either way he doesn’t let his irritation with it show.

For someone so sure he would lose, Ruka comes very close to winning. Akio doesn’t look surprised, either by the near win or by the loss, but it’s bothering Touga. He lowers the opera glasses. ‘You let him fight with no desire to win.’

‘Could I have changed that?’ Akio asks.

Touga looks at him, confused. That’s what the car rides are for, what Touga has largely been for as he pulls strings at Akio’s command. No one else has been allowed to fight without intending to win. ‘Of course.’

* * *

When Touga finds Ruka the next day, he’s at the centre of a crowd, Shiori clinging to him as she begs him to come back to her. It’s a pitiful scene, and if Ruka’s intent was to punish Shiori for the hold she has on Juri then he’s certainly done that.

Touga waits until it’s over to approach him.

‘That was quite the drama,’ Touga says.

‘She’s a talented actress,’ Ruka answers.

‘And working under a talented producer,’ Touga says. ‘What is the final act going to be, I wonder?’

‘I expect you’ll have the best seat in the house.’

Touga steps closer. Ruka is wearing cologne, not unpleasant but definitely stronger than anything he used to wear. ‘Why did you lose? It seems like you could use a miracle.’

Ruka actually winces slightly, for the first time looking troubled. ‘Aren’t you a little late to tempt me?’

‘I’m not here to tempt you. I haven’t been asked. What I want to know is, why not?’ If Ruka is being selfless, why is he allowed to be when Touga has helped warp other duelists’ intentions into selfishness?

‘The miracle only comes at the end of the year,’ Ruka says softly. ‘_His_ miracle. It’s no use to him to have a champion who won’t last that long.’

Touga takes a step back, involuntarily. ‘That’s really all the time you have left?’

Ruka smiles at him, wistful and bitter at once. ‘I’m able to use it how I wish. At least I have that much.’

* * *

Later Touga asks Akio, ‘Are you sure Tsuchiya has a plan and this isn’t just a way to get Juri’s attention?’

‘Is that what it would be if you treated someone like that?’ Akio asks, eyes on the road.

Touga turns away from him to look out into the darkness between the streetlamps. ‘Are you saying it means something different when an Alpha behaves that way?’ He’s not sure he can believe that, not when Akio himself uses attraction as a weapon more often than force. Then again, Akio definitely always has a plan beyond getting attention. Or maybe it means something different when a dying person does something like that. If Touga was dying… no, he’d still be looking to be mourned, wouldn’t he? If survival was out of the question he’d at least make sure he wasn’t easily forgotten.

‘I’m saying a person’s heart is veiled from everyone, what they mean by something may be entirely different to what you would mean,’ Akio says.

* * *

In the end Ruka’s miracle comes with a broken necklace and Juri removing her rose herself.

‘Was that enough for you?’ Touga asks Ruka the next day.

Ruka’s waiting by the gate for a taxi. The cologne is gone and he barely smells of Alpha at all, now. Touga can even smell the traces of sickness on him, or maybe he’s imagining it. ‘I freed her from both Shiori and Ends of the World,’ he says, staring up at the overcast sky. ‘It was enough.’

‘From Shiori, maybe,’ says Touga. ‘But you got her back on the duelling arena when I couldn’t have done it. I’m sure the Ends of the World thanks you for that.’

Ruka flinches and Touga wonders why he wanted to hurt him. Is it all just too perfect, even in this place of fairytales, for Ruka to sweep in, perform a noble deed and promptly die?

The taxi pulls up and Ruka picks up his bag. ‘Either way, it’s done,’ he says.

* * *

Touga gets into Akio’s car only to be overwhelmed by the scent of Utena. It’s wrong, to find her scent in such a place, even though she lives with Akio and it can’t be worse, really, that he drove her somewhere. Except it can be worse because Touga knows what the car represents and it might be what he wants but it’s not what he wants for _her_. He climbs in, following his nose, and finds the shoe sitting in the footwell.

Without really meaning to, he holds onto it while Akio starts the car and they drive along familiar roads. It’s a little pathetic, and Akio is surely entertained by it, for Touga to clutch at something that holds her scent. He tries not to curl over it, not to sniff at it too obviously, and manages to gather some composure before he asks. ‘So, Tenjou Utena? She’s the owner of the glass slipper?’

‘That’s right.’ Akio’s voice doesn’t hold any judgement and Touga relaxes. ‘By the way, you’ve fallen for her, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Maybe it’s easy to say because Akio doesn’t care one way or another, not beyond how it will affect his plans. ‘Losing the duel to her was a shock. I don’t mean simply being defeated, but finding a girl who shook my core beliefs. It was the only time I’ve reconsidered the way I live my life.’

‘You have good insight,’ Akio says, leaning back. ‘She’ll be a good woman.’

‘And a good Alpha?’

‘Oh? Is that the part of her you have your eye on?’

‘On all of her.’ Touga fidgets with the shoe, lost in his own thoughts. ‘It’s only natural, isn’t it? When she had such an impact.’

‘Even an Alpha girl is still a girl in the end,’ Akio says.

Touga leans back himself, letting the breeze blow her scent away from him. Isn’t it better that way? She may have changed him, but she didn’t care to help him afterwards. Better for her to be a girl, not someone he wants to depend on. ‘I suppose so,’ he says.


	3. tearing up everyone you need the most

Nanami has a book on blood types and is rambling on about how well she gets on with their parents despite them all being type B. Even though she’s lying — their parents ignore Nanami as much as possible and she avoids coming to their attention — it’s still something she can only say because Touga protected her. Then she says something about how their whole family is type B, as if she’s not talking to the one member of it who isn’t, and Touga snaps his book shut.

It’s not as if he can tell her why he’s upset. Even reminding her that he’s type A would draw attention to something better left unmentioned, and a reason he’s glad Nanami skips all her biology classes.

‘Where are you going?’ she asks when he stands up.

‘Shower.’ It’s more a barb than a plan when he adds, ‘Want to join me?’ and lets the moment draw out agonisingly before adding, ‘Just kidding.’ He wants to hurt her, that’s all, but he’s not surprised when he realises she’s followed him into the bathroom. He holds his pose for her, on display for her perusal, and only when the door slips shut does he wonder what he was doing.

* * *

Touga misses his phone. He doesn’t need it so much as he’s used to having it, a constant line to anyone he wants attention from, but it’s odd to reach into his pocket and find it not there.

He hopes Nanami enjoys having it, wonders whether it smells of him to her.

Looking for it gives him an excuse to enter her bedroom that night, wrapped in a bathrobe. Something about her seems off, though, more dazed and withdrawn than he thought she would be. Maybe it’s to be expected, she might act like she wants him but she’s still young and her feelings are probably confusing to her. Checking for fever lets him lean in close, pressing their foreheads together, and she can definitely smell him now.

‘Stop it, we’re not kids anymore,’ she says, pulling away.

That’s normally his line, he doesn’t like it suddenly being hers.

‘Then how about a kiss?’ he asks. He says it to fluster her, but it occurs to him that a few months ago he would have expected her to take him up on an offer like that. She’s more self-conscious now, more aware that they’re really not kids. If she kissed him _now_ she’d know what it meant. ‘Just kidding,’ he says, and walks away.

* * *

The next day Nanami is nowhere to be found and the day after that his heat starts so he can’t even go looking for her.

He can still call girls over, he still has a landline, but it’s not the same without Nanami. He’s used to letting them fuck him, he’s not used to having to ask them for help to the bathroom. It’s somehow more humiliating to beg them for water than for touches, to let them see him weak and messy in ways that aren’t even sexy. He’s not meant to have to _rely_ on them, he has Nanami for that.

Where has she gone, and why?

* * *

Saionji’s dorm seems like the obvious place to start. It’s not a thought Touga likes, but if Nanami has decided to leave him it feels reasonable that she’d go to someone else she sees as brotherly.

Saionji’s nostrils flare the moment he opens the door. He grabs Touga’s arm and pulls him inside, slamming it shut after them. ‘What the hell are you doing walking around like this? Are you even out of heat?’ he hisses.

For the first time ever Saionji looks intimidating, he’s still holding Touga’s arm and he’s got him backed up against the wall by the door. He’s much, much too close, and he smells _really good_ in a way that makes Touga want to melt against the wall and submit, but it’s probably not half as good as Touga smells to him. Teasing him with the traces of heat is one thing, misjudging badly enough to provoke an attack is another. They might be equal in kendo, but Saionji’s stronger. Alphas build muscle more easily, after all.

‘I was looking for Nanami,’ Touga says, voice carefully calm. ‘I take it she’s not here?’

‘No, she’s not.’ Saionji shakes Touga slightly, barely seeming to know he’s doing it. ‘Seriously, what are you doing? Anything could happen to you!’

‘True. An Alpha could pull me into his dorm and have his way with me,’ Touga says, voice dripping with amused condescension.

Saionji pulls away as if he’s been burned and puts his hand over his nose with a strangled sound. ‘Get out. No, wait. Did you _walk_ here?’

‘Yes, and nothing happened. You’re overreacting.’ Touga pulls the door open, relieved to no longer be trapped in a small space with Saionji. He’s never, _never,_ been afraid of Saionji before.

‘Let me walk you home,’ Saionji says.

‘Wouldn’t I be in more danger from you than anything else out there?’

Saionji actually flinches, folding into himself in a way that makes him look very much less the dominating Alpha. ‘I won’t get close to you. I just want to make sure…’

‘Fine,’ Touga says. ‘You can play guard dog.’

Saionji keeps enough distance between them that they can’t really talk, trailing along behind Touga through the empty streets in a way that would make anyone who was around deeply suspicious. Although they’d have to think Touga was pretty out of it, not to notice his very obvious stalker. Saionji’s much jumpier than Touga is and keeps growling at shadows. Of course, Touga realises, he’s denied the most obviously dangerous instinct only to indulge a different one: keeping other Alphas away from your Omega while they’re in heat. Not the best idea, since he doesn’t want to encourage Saionji to think they’re mated, but having gone through this heat without Nanami it’s… nice, he supposes, to have someone want to protect and care for him. An indulgence of his own stupid instincts.

When they reach the door to the Kiryuu mansion Saionji finally comes close enough to talk. ‘Nanami’s missing?’ he says, as if that information only just managed to penetrate his brain.

‘For a few days now,’ Touga replies.

Saionji nods. ‘Maybe it’s just awkward for her now she’s getting older,’ he offers, looking embarrassed.

Maybe, Touga had noticed her new self-consciousness, hadn’t he? It might even be a hopeful sign that she’s avoiding his heat if it wasn’t so inconvenient. Besides, he really wants to know where she is. ‘She could have let me know where she’s gone,’ he says. ‘Will you ask around?’

Saionji doesn’t look thrilled at the idea of having to ask Juri and Miki for information, but he nods. ‘I’ll call you.’

‘On the landline,’ Touga says. ‘Nanami’s stolen my cell phone.’

‘…She stole your phone?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘What’s going on with you two?’ Saionji takes a step forward to look at Touga’s face and stops as he catches Touga’s scent again. ‘Never mind. I’ll ask around.’

* * *

Saionji does call back the next day with the information that Nanami has stayed with both Miki and Juri, but it’s Akio who tells Touga where she is now.

The extra day means Touga’s scent shouldn’t affect anyone, but he still showers very carefully before heading to Akio’s tower. Akio’s been gentle enough, but Touga’s not entirely sure whether he’d need to be overwhelmed by instinct for that to change or just need an excuse to claim he was.

Nanami seems unharmed, if upset, standing across from him with three people between them. He’s not sure what she’s doing here, or why Akio brought her here. There’s no role Nanami could serve for Akio, even as a duelist she’s largely been Touga’s piece to move as he pleases.

‘I’ve come to take you home,’ he tells her.

‘Leave!’ He’s unprepared for the sudden command, but when he protests, tells her she has no reason to start dorm life now, she just continues to refuse him, to insist she can’t.

‘We’re the only siblings each other have. Shouldn’t we live only for each other?’ he tries, softening his tone as he realises demands won’t move her.

‘But we’re not really brother and sister.’ The words seem to be dragged out of her, a pain she was trying to bury surfacing against her will.

Touga feels a moment’s sympathy. She didn’t want to leave him, she’s just confused, misunderstanding something she’s finally realised and assuming he’s the only one adopted. Believing what Akio wants her to believe, and if that’s the case would it really be wise for Touga to clear it up? It might even be useful to him, if he needs her in Anthy’s role then maybe she’ll have less scruples if she thinks them unrelated by blood.

‘How did you find out?’ He lets sadness leach into his voice, a real enough response to damaging the bond between them this severely, and lets her misinterpret.

Her voice is shaking as she says that she’d hoped it wasn’t true, cries out that she loves him and begs him to leave all at once.

Leaving isn’t something he has much choice about in the end. Nanami goes back upstairs and Akio escorts him out. They’re in the elevator when Akio says, ‘Quite a scene, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Touga’s voice sounds quiet even to him, heavy with feelings he can’t name.

‘Do you know what you’re going to do next?’

‘I… I’m to be her bride, aren’t I? No one else could.’ And if he’s lucky, if he plays it right, maybe she’ll return the favour when his turn comes and he’ll be the one to emerge as the dominant prince in their dyad.

‘Do you mind?’

‘No.’ There are worse people to be bound to than Nanami, who is irritating but familiar, close to him all his life already. Who already knows that he’s weaker than he pretends and has covered for it instead of taking advantage because she can’t separate her own interests from his. ‘I don’t mind.’

* * *

It takes a while for anger to ignite, for sympathy at the realisation that Nanami hadn’t intended to leave her brother to turn to resentment that he has value to her only as her brother. Body and blood and nothing else to anyone.

He spreads the rumour that they’re not siblings before Nanami can, tangling it so that it’s clear he and Nanami aren’t related but unclear which of them is meant to be the real child of the Kiryuus. Utena had asked him the other day, all innocence, if he had Latin blood and the question rankles. He can’t answer it, of course, but neither will he be so easily revealed as not belonging, maybe not even fully Japanese. Let people wonder which of them is the outsider, let people assume he’s what they want him to be, and push Nanami out rather than him.

When the rumours give Keiko the courage to approach it’s with malice he encourages her, knowing that replacing Nanami with one of her sycophants will cut her deepest. Besides, he senses something in Keiko, a raw possessiveness that he knows will grate on Nanami’s protective nerves without representing a real threat the way it might if he encouraged something like that from an Alpha.

He lets Nanami overhear him in the greenhouse, saying that he’d never cared about her, that he doesn’t care about her now, that he’d just been ordered to treat her well. It’s easy, in a way, to say the things he wishes were true. That he’d never let himself be hurt to protect her, never felt like she was his child or relied on her like she was his Alpha, never felt like she was part of him. Even so, he’s not saying it to push her away, not ultimately, but to bind them into a unit capable of revolution.

When Nanami charges in to slap Keiko he expects her to turn on him with a growl, demand to know what he thinks he’s doing, herd him away from the competition. Instead she begs him, tearfully, not to choose Keiko. Anyone else, she says. There must be someone better suited to him.

‘Are you saying you’d be the better choice?’ he asks. He thinks that if she was really an Alpha she’d say yes, with her blood up from a fight, that she’d grab onto him and pull him down to her. Instead she crumples, pleading with him like a child to say that it’s not true. That he was kind to her because he wanted to be, that he loved her.

It’s Keiko who takes his arm and pulls him away.

* * *

It’s rare for Touga to be called to meet Akio in the dome that is technically his office, usually they meet on the balcony or in the car. Akio flaunts Kanae in front of Utena but keeps his relationship with Touga secret, at least from her oblivious eyes. Whether it’s because he needs Utena to believe she’s the only illegitimate love interest and her rival is the good girl, or whether it’s because knowing she wasn’t the only duelist would cast doubt on her being special, Touga doesn’t know.

Today Akio sits behind his desk, not even on one of the white couches. ‘I received some interesting papers from your sister earlier,’ he says.

Touga looks down at the forms on the desk, filled in with Nanami’s neatest handwriting. Transfer forms. She really intends to leave him, he realises with a shock. He’s pushed her too far or not far enough and she’d rather run than face the climax. She _can’t_ leave, she’s his key to the castle, to revolution, to _change_. She’s his sister, they’ve never been apart for long.

‘I assume you’re not going to let her do this.’ Touga tries to keep his voice firm, cold, but it wavers a little with anger or fear.

Akio sweeps the papers into his hand and places them in Touga’s. ‘As her brother, it’s up to you. Should I let her leave?’

‘No.’ Touga pulls the papers against his chest. ‘No, of course not. We need her.’

* * *

Nanami’s attitude on the car ride confuses him from the first. That she thinks Akio isn’t normal, isn’t human, is likely correct. That she thinks it because she saw him and Anthy together rather than because of this strange car ride, because of the duels, because of any of the actually unnatural things that have happened, is what he can’t understand. Isn’t that what she wanted for herself?

Kissing her seems easy in the moment. Akio’s scent wraps around everything, blinding him until his lips are against hers and he smells the faint, soft Beta scent, barely there and so at odds with her personality. There’s nothing gentle about the way she shoves him off, hands landing in his stomach and knocking the air from his lungs. She turns away as far as she can get, hands over her mouth as if to stop herself throwing up or to prevent him from trying again.

Despite knowing that it’s too late to turn back, that he’s taken them so far on this path they must either become this or break apart, he still feels relief. It touches him like a cool hand against the fever of this mad journey to the Ends of the World.

‘Isn’t this what you always wanted me to do?’ he asks, already knowing she’ll protest. ‘After all, we’re not brother and sister.’

‘That’s not it!’

There, he’s tried and failed, and if she won’t let him it doesn’t have to happen. Still, though, despite relief, despite regret, they’re on this journey seeking desire to bring about the next duel. He still has his lines.

‘Then what do you want?’ he asks.

* * *

Standing on the arena he can tell Utena with perfect honesty that this was Nanami’s own choice and be glad Utena doesn’t know how much worse his own choice would have been. Nanami’s choice is to surpass him. If she, too, senses the only way out of this is to break apart then she’s chosen breaking. By proving she doesn’t need him to make her special, she can leave him behind. Utena still looks at him with blame in her eyes, even unknowing of why he deserves it, and it still stings.

Once he’s placed Nanami’s sword in her hand his part is done, he stands blank and ignored waiting for it to be over. He doesn’t look at Anthy, it would be too much like facing a mirror.

* * *

Akio pushes Touga to tell him that he and Nanami really are siblings and then suggests Touga ‘clear up the misunderstanding’ as if that’s what it is, as if Akio’s not making an order with his gentle suggestion. Touga stays where he is, curled against the headboard with his gaze on the floor instead of on Akio. He doesn’t want to know what Akio might see in his face right now.

It’s impossible to tell Nanami that they’re related now, when he tried to talk her into sex by saying they weren’t siblings. How would she ever forgive him? Isn’t there enough between them that he’ll never be forgiven for already? ‘Isn’t it more romantic between a brother and sister not bound by blood?’ he says, as if he’s still got a chance to pull them towards _that_ even if he wanted to.

It satisfies Akio, though, who calls him a bad brother approvingly and pulls him down to join him on the bed. This time, even before the knotting, Touga’s pleasure is more feigned than real.

* * *

When he gets home he hears the patter of feet on the stairs and finds a magazine abandoned on a chair. She’d fled, then, as soon as she heard the front door. Poor Nanami must think her attempt to fly the nest failed with the lost duel, not realising that even trying was enough. He sits down in the chair she just left, curling around to press his face against the back of it and catch her scent. Is there something he should say to her? Is there anything he could say to her? Better, he thinks, not to intrude.

If she tries to leave again now, Akio might not stop her.

* * *

Touga has no reason to be in school on Sunday, but then he has no reason to be anywhere else. Home feels empty with Nanami avoiding him, he misses even the chatter that he’d usually cut off or ignored. Other options feel… hollow, and for now that hollowness outweighs the pleasure of them. Besides, he never got his mobile phone back, so he lost a lot of numbers.

Anthy, he supposes, does have a reason. He can see her dark head though the windows of the birdcage, bent over a rose, and he pushes open the door to step in. She’s pruning a soft pink rosebush when he’s only ever seen her water them before, leaves and blossoms falling around her feet as she turns her placid smile on him.

‘Tenjou’s not with you today?’ he says.

‘She went to deliver some roses to my brother,’ Anthy replies.

Utena _lives_ with Akio, there’s no reason why she needs to deliver him roses, and no reason why her doing so should make Touga’s stomach sink or turn the air oppressive. Anthy’s secateurs snip, snip, flashing in the light hypnotically. ‘When do you think she’ll be back?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Anthy says serenely. ‘It’s a lovely day. Maybe they’ll go out somewhere.’

It’s so hot, and the scent of roses is suffocating. It’s like a storm approaching, or the beginning of heat. ‘I see.’

Anthy puts down her secateurs and begins to sweep up the fallen petals. ‘Did you need anything else, Touga-san?’

‘No,’ he says, blankly. Then, ‘No, thank you, I’ll leave you to your work. You’re very diligent, to be doing it on a Sunday.’

The air outside feels barely cooler, despite the oncoming autumn, but at least it doesn’t smell so strongly of roses.

* * *


	4. the pounding chorus of our desperate hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also has porn, but it's self-indulgent happy ending porn.

Utena returns to school with eyes which gaze dreamily at Akio even when he’s not present. Touga wants to think that this is Akio softening her up for him, ensuring his success. Ever since she won without the sword of Dios, Akio’s been talking about replacing her, forcing her to lose, and Touga’s the only one left for her to lose to.

But if Akio’s seduction of _her_ is a way to exploit her rather than a sign of favour, what of Akio’s seduction of _him?_

* * *

The dojo is cool and shadowy, a refuge from blazing sun on marble. It doesn’t smell of Saionji especially, he’s far from the only one to practice here and he keeps it clean, so it’s easy to pretend the comfort it offers isn’t because it feels more like Saionji’s territory than Akio’s.

Touga’s dressed in his kendo uniform and ready to fight when Saionji arrives already dressed in his.

‘You’re late,’ Touga says. ‘Hurry up and spar with me.’

Saionji steps inside. ‘It’s been a while since you’ve come here.’

‘I’m all fired up. I’ve got a match coming up.’ Practicing kendo won’t win him a duel any more than it did Saionji any good, but he needs something to focus on that isn’t the doubts creeping around the edges of his mind. There’s a companionship in sparring that stretches back to childhood, and as team captain Saionji can’t turn him away. ‘It seems a certain person isn’t happy about her continuing to win without the sword of Dios appearing.’

Saionji frowns, not at Touga but at the absent Utena. ‘Why do we all keep losing to that stupid girl?’ Saionji asks.

‘She’s not just a girl. She was shown something eternal in her youth.’

Saionji’s shinai clatters to the floor. ‘_She’s_ that girl?’ The room seems to hold its breath. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since the car rides started. He told me then.’

Saionji stares at him, level and assessing. ‘You were interested in her before that.’

‘She’s an interesting girl.’

Saionji reaches down jerkily to pick up his shinai. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Let’s spar.’

* * *

Akio always smells of Utena now, a dizzy mingling of Alpha pheremones. Touga is often invited into the dome rather than the car as if it doesn’t matter much what Utena might see now. Akio has her hooked, he’s just letting the line play out.

Touga tries to hold his balance, while photographing Akio on an impossible mountain of cars, between finding out what’s going on with Akio and Utena and not acknowledging the weakness of worrying about her. He says he wants to shake her up and gets told to give her a present from Akio.

‘You don’t know her very well, do you?’ he says, relieved at the thought Akio might not. ‘I bought her a dress once before, but she’s not the sort of girl to be plied with presents.’

‘Have you forgotten? She treasures an old ring given to her by a man whose name she doesn’t even know.’

‘You don’t say.’ Touga turns away, looking out into the dark of the unlit planetarium. ‘So, that’s what binds her.’

A girl who treasures a present, after all, but only from someone who could show her eternity. There’s nothing he could offer that measures up to that.

* * *

Touga picks the earrings with more care than usual, but they still seem like the sort of gift he’d give to any girl when he opens the box to check on them. He’s unsure of his own motivations, whether this is the best he can do to impress Akio, or whether he doesn’t want the gift to seem too remarkable. Expensive, of course, but he knows for sure Utena’s not the kind of girl to be bought.

Utena’s smile when he calls to her quickly turns into a glare when she realises it’s him. Was she expecting Akio?

‘I wish you wouldn’t be so quick to make that face at me. You must really dislike me,’ he says.

‘Of course she does!’ her friend says, instantly protective. Touga finds himself having to announce he’s on an errand for the chairman just to be allowed to talk to them. It hurts, how easily she smiles at the earrings when she thinks they’re from Akio, even as she protests they don’t suit her. Her friend, so quick to warn her of Touga’s intentions, is even quicker to throw her at Akio and put the earrings on her almost by force.

Touga needs to do something, he needs to pull Utena away from Akio somehow, and he wants it to be towards him. He might not be able to show her eternity, but she doesn’t know Akio can do that either and she’s wearing jewellery that she thinks is from him.

‘Tenjou-kun,’ he says, unable to look her in the eye as he says it. ‘Would you come with me? There’s something I want to consult you about.’

‘Consult me? Are you sure you have the right person?’

He buries his face further in his hand. ‘I’m sorry. There’s something I really want you to hear. Please, Tenjou-kun.’

He sounds pathetic, but that’s what moves her in the end. She’s a kind-hearted Alpha, and even as her friend warns her about being too soft with him she’s preparing to follow.

* * *

Horse riding had, in retrospect, not been the best plan. Touga had had some vague idea that Akio might find it harder to see them, or find them, or whatever it is he does if they were moving. He’d also thought demonstrating a part of the prince ideal that he had mastered and Utena hadn’t might impress her and that being as close as they necessarily must be on a horse might give him some advantage in attracting her. His scent has to be alluring to her in a way Akio’s can’t match, no matter what else about Akio allures her.

Then she’d fallen and his heart had been in his throat until Akio caught her. She’d been so pleased to find herself in Akio’s arms she hadn’t even remembered Touga enough to be angry with him. Even if he does find another time to tell her what Akio is, at this point won’t she just hate him for saying it?

His pensive thoughts are interrupted by a Beta girl with a poppy and a letter. For a minute all he can think to do is stare at her with something like pity for the earnestness with which she declares love to a stranger seen only from a distance. Then he remembers to put his smile on, to send her on her way with a compliment and a kiss to leave her happy.

As soon as she’s out of sight he drops the letter, not bothering to check it for her name or number. Playboy’s starting to sound a bit old-fashioned and it’s not what he wants any more.

* * *

Saionji is nearly always in the dojo now, seeming to avoid both the student council and any remaining duties to it by burying himself in kendo club. Touga’s not surprised to find him there, or that his reaction to having his katas interrupted is an ungracious, ‘oh, it’s _you._’ Touga deserves that disdain as much as he deserved Utena’s, and knowing that it’s almost reassuring. At least this is someone who knows him.

‘I want to spar.’ He doesn’t, really. What he wants is to be close to Saionji, not to feel alone and adrift, but he can ask to fight when he can’t ask to talk, or to sit together.

Saionji might not be pleased to see him, but he puts his katana away and fetches shinai for them both without question. It’s only when they’re facing each other that he asks, ‘Something wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Touga answers.

‘Liar.’ Saionji’s stance is solid and easy, none of the desperation to win that he used to show when sparring against Touga. ‘Your confidence is gone from your sword.’

‘Oh? You’re impressive, Saionji,’ Touga says, falling back on mockery, trying to shake that newfound confidence. ‘You can tell even that about me?’

‘I can.’ Saionji’s sword is held above his head, while Touga holds his in front of him, both unmoving. If there’s a match going on here, it’s not with the shinai. ‘You’re arrogant and pompous, and full of treacherous confidence.’

‘Come on now. You’re not being fair.’

‘That’s the sort of man you are. You pretend to be chivalrous, but you’ve never really loved anyone. People are nothing but tools to you. That was your strength. But can your sword defeat her now?’

‘You talk too much, you’re leaving yourself open,’ Touga says.

Saionji, having apparently said his piece, accepts the push and brings his shinai down. Memories flash before Touga’s eyes as he spars, the coffin, her hair between his fingers, the way she’d been so starkly unsaveable back then. He wants to save her now, but Saionji’s right, his confidence is ebbing away almost as much as after she beat him.

‘You wanted to save her too,’ he says. ‘Back then.’

Saionji lowers his shinai. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Touga lowers his own, resting the tip of it on the mat. ‘I don’t know yet.’

Saionji looks at him again, catching him in that steady gaze. ‘But you already know you won’t be able to do it alone.’

Touga looks at Saionji’s swords on their stand, katana and wakizashi, a matched pair. ‘That might be true,’ he says.

* * *

Saionji’s different now, or maybe Touga is. Saionji’s always been direct, it’s less surprising that he’d ask straight out whether Touga loves Utena than that Touga would try to answer honestly, even when the honest answer is that he doesn’t know.

When Touga starts one of their meetings by handing Saionji a motorcycle helmet and telling him to come for a ride, Saionji’s less than impressed. ‘Didn’t I do that part already?’ he says.

‘This is my turn, and I’d rather not ask the chairman to drive us,’ Touga says.

‘Is _that_ the only alternative?’ Saionji asks, but he comes. He doesn’t like Touga driving, either, but he lets him drive. Even if there’s a moment where he stands up and Touga thinks that rather than being his bride Saionji’s going to wind up in hospital.

It’s when they’ve stopped, when Touga’s holding out a hand to help Saionji out of the sidecar, that Touga says, ‘You will be my bride, won’t you?’

‘If you have to do what he wants and fight her.’ Saionji takes his hand and jumps down to join him on the side of the road.

‘I don’t know if there’s any other way. You’d be okay with it? You wouldn’t be the only Alpha to play bride.’ He wishes he hadn’t said that a moment later, Ruka had been manipulating his duelist and Ruka had been dying. It’s not an example he wants Saionji to follow.

His hand must have tightened on Saionji’s because Saionji squeezes it back before letting go. ‘I said I’d be with you.’

‘You also said you didn’t like being vulnerable.’

‘I’m not the one who’ll have to let someone into my heart. Are you okay with that?’

That’s already started, hasn’t it? That’s what’s changed between them, that he’s letting Saionji get that close. ‘It will be fine,’ he says. ‘If we need to fight I’ll be ready.’

* * *

It’s in search of an answer as to whether fighting is inevitable that he invites Utena up to the dueling arena that night, and she really is too soft because she goes with him even though last time they spoke he dropped her from a horse.

He crowds against her in the elevator, unsure whether he’s trying to seduce her or test the effect she has on him. She smells most strongly of herself, but he can smell both Akio and Anthy on her, not sex but proximity. Akio he already knew was a rival, his own jealousy can’t take him off guard there, but he feels a deeper, instinctive jolt at Anthy’s scent. Whether he approaches Utena as man or Omega it feels like she’s already taken, although he doubts she’s thinking of it that way. She’s still too innocent to be with both Anthy and Akio at once.

‘Will you quit it?’ she says, annoyed at being crowded and neither intimidated nor charmed. Perhaps that’s why he likes her, in the same way he finds it reassuring when Saionji’s brusque with him. Anyone who likes him too much doesn’t know him, annoyed but kind is better than that.

At the top she says it’s exciting, like visiting the park at night, and gazes up at the stars entranced. He watches her eyes widen as the castle appears, beautiful above them with all its lights blazing, and the northern lights drape themselves around the arena in a show almost more enchanting than the impossible castle. She sits on the arena wall to watch it all, gazing upwards with one knee hugged against her. He watches her, watches the stars reflected in her eyes, smells the warmth of her in the autumn night.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he says. ‘I’m lucky to have met someone like you.’

‘There you go again,’ she says. ‘Just forget it and get to the point.’

‘Are you in love with the chairman?’ he asks. Even if she says no, isn’t it the chairman or Anthy? What would that change, when they’re working together, beyond Touga’s approach?

Her reaction is startled, all her emotions so open to the world she actually moves with them, tipping herself forward and looking up further still. ‘Could it be?’ she says, as if to herself rather than Touga. ‘Is it possible? But Akio’s engaged.’

‘I see.’

‘Why’d you ask me that? What about Ends of the World?’

‘I can’t tell you who he is now. You’ll find out soon enough.’ That would be a broad enough hint for most people, but not for her. If he said it, would she argue, call him a liar? Or believe him? He can’t bring himself to try. ‘Before that, I wanted to ask you something.’

‘What is it?’

‘Can’t I be yours? Your prince, if you want one, or your Omega?’

She leans forward with a sigh, immediately dismissive. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘I do! I love you. As a girl, a princess, an Alpha.’ It feels natural to kneel at her feet. He’s not even sure whether he’s intending it as chivalry or submission until he takes her hand and rests his forehead against it instead of kissing it. He wants to save her and he wants to be saved, he wants to drop his head into her lap and tell her that he’s so confused now, that he doesn’t know what either of them are or what they’re supposed to be. ‘From the bottom of my heart, you are everything to me.’ And she is, but she’s also still a naive girl who gets excited about being outside past her bedtime. He can afford to play the Omega for her, but she’ll be doomed if he really falls apart. ‘Please. Even if I cannot be worthy of you, at least let me have this moment. Let me carve it into my heart. That would be enough.’

‘Okay,’ she says softly. She strokes his head then, as if he really was her Omega to be petted and comforted. He sits on the ground beside her, resting his head against the side of her leg and looking up at the sky with her, watching the slow dance of the northern lights. She puts a hand on his shoulder, her scent enveloping him, and for the time they sit there together everything really does feel right.

* * *

That night answers his question, an answer he passes on to Saionji. He does have feelings for her, and that means he has to defeat her. If the victor falls into Ends of the Worlds hand, he doesn’t want it to be her. Even if she hates him for it, he needs to save her.

Maybe he’s the one following Ruka’s example.

* * *

Touga backs Utena up against the tree, using his greater height to loom over her, but it feels like play acting a confidence he can’t feel. She’s far more upset than intimidated, despite all the evidence she really had thought better of him than this.

‘I want you to duel me again,’ he says. ‘You want to protect the Rose Bride, correct?’

‘Yes, I won’t let anyone take Himemiya.’ He’s expecting, he doesn’t know, for her to growl or bare her teeth, but she seems confused more than angry. Even though his body language is as dominant as he can make it she’s still smelling an Omega. He’s a threat to Anthy, perhaps, but her body doesn’t react to him as a rival. Saionji, lying with his head in Anthy’s lap, gets her hackles up more, and Touga continues to block her from intervening.

‘I promise, if you win this duel the student council will never try to take the Rose Bride again.’ She’s never known the schedule, the rules, any of it. ‘But if you lose you must become my woman. And my Alpha.’

Her eyes are wet as she looks away from him. ‘Is that even something you can threaten me into?’

‘It’s not a threat, it’s a bargain.’ He still doesn’t know, out of Akio and Anthy, which she’s most bound to, most in danger from. But he can supplant both. ‘You can do as you please with me, so long as I’m your only one.’

She shakes her head, but it’s a rejection of the situation, not his offer. ‘I never thought you’d do something like this.’

‘No objections?’

She looks him in the eye, voice still shaky, and says, ‘No.’

* * *

Touga doesn’t know what he expected having his sword drawn to feel like. Bad, somehow, like having his insides wrenched into the light, although he’d been prepared to endure. Saionji’s touch is gentle, reverent, one hand settling over Touga’s heart while the other rests below his collar bone, a touch that cradles without restraining. Touga could lean back into it or stand up and step away with equal ease. He lets himself fall and Saionji takes his weight, tipping him back as a light wells warm in his chest. Saionji would rather die than hurt him, and for once that’s not a lever to pull or a sign he’s let the balance between them tip too close to mated, but just a reason to feel safe.

Saionji lifts him back to his feet and places the sword in his hand.

* * *

The duel is the clash of swords, the roar of engines. The one moment when he takes Utena’s hand and pulls her close, a moment when either of them should have struck and neither did. The duel is Utena growling like a car engine herself, holding a blade with the power he’d once had and lost in front of her against a stream of cars while Anthy presses close against her back. If he’d doubted their relationship before, it’s obvious now.

Touga’s last desperate strike is made from the motorbike, Saionji trying to drive from the sidecar, Touga perched on it like he’s jousting, neither of them quite sure how they got there. Utena’s sword slices through it as easily as it did the cars, leaving Touga and Saionji both sprawled on the ground, heads nearly touching.

Touga pulls himself up, battered body protesting, to call one last warning to Utena against Ends of the World and the Rose Bride. She doesn’t want to hear it, though, and when she says goodbye it’s _sayanora_, goodbye forever. She’s done with him. He lets himself fall back, looking up at a sky that no longer contains the castle he’s spent a year reaching for. Just the soft dance of the northern lights.

‘Touga,’ Saionji says, quietly. ‘Is it over for us?’

‘No.’ There are no roles left for them to play, neither duelist nor bride, but Akio’s game still holds them. ‘It won’t be over until we see the very end.’

Saionji heaves himself into a sitting position with a groan that almost slides into a whimper, and shuffles himself around so that he’s sitting beside Touga’s head. Touga raises himself just enough to put his head in Saionji’s lap, a welcome change from the hard arena.

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t save her,’ Saionji says.

Touga sighs, it’s so similar and so different from how he’d watched the stars with her, both of them gazing up into the heavens. He doesn’t know what the difference is, the lack of some tension between them, maybe just the sense that they’re on the same side. That Saionji is on his side. ‘Now all we can do is wait and hope,’ he says.

* * *

When time stretches on, when the whole school seems to be holding its breath for Utena to make a move she has no reason to make, they go to Akio for answers. Or, perhaps, Touga goes and Saionji follows.

‘Are you sure?’ Touga asks. ‘You won’t win against him in a fight.’

‘I know that.’ Saionji scowls. ‘I’ll follow your lead. I just want to be there.’

‘Why? If you can’t do anything, isn’t it better not to see?’

‘Are _you_ going to look away then? From _her?_’

‘No.’ If all he can do for her now is watch her fall to Akio then he’ll still do it, no matter how painful or useless it would be. ‘I… I understand.’

‘I won’t try to fight him,’ Saionji says. ‘I promise.’

He keeps that promise, although his bare chest vibrates with the growls he’s suppressing. He speaks his lines in echo of Touga as the camera and Akio’s eyes undress them, keeps the same disinterested cadence. It’s afterwards, when they’re outside, that he leans against the tower and snarls. A sick, vicious sound that seems to come up from his belly, as if he’s vomiting up every growl he swallowed.

* * *

Utena goes to the last duel, in the end, not for revolution but for Anthy. She answers Touga’s last attempt to dissuade her, to tell her only a fool believes in true friendship, by calling herself a fool as proudly as she’d ever called herself a prince.

Then they can only wait, not even watch, as Miki times a battle they can’t see.

When it’s over, they don’t even know who won.

* * *

Touga steps out of the elevator beside Saionji feeling half-blind, as if his eyes want to gaze at distant stars and distant battles and even the buildings are too close to focus on. Saionji puts a hand on his arm and Touga bends to bury his face in Saionji’s shoulder, inhaling the warm and musky scent to ground himself.

‘Do you want to sleep in the dojo tonight? Touga asks.

He can feel Saionji start against him, even as he wraps an arm around Touga’s chest. ‘Are you sure?’ Saionji asks. They both know how much Saionji wants it, to have Touga close in a place that feels like his territory, and they both know Touga’s been resisting, unwilling to bring out instincts he’s always kept in check. But tonight Touga wants it, wants to let his instincts have free reign for once, to feel loved and comforted.

‘Mm.’ He leans more of his weight on Saionji, keeps his voice light. ‘I’m tired. It’s been a terrible year, and I’m only an Omega after all.’

‘You’re most of the reason it’s been a terrible year,’ Saionji says, but he doesn’t sound bitter or accusing, and his hand strokes over Touga’s hair. ‘You go ahead, I need to fetch some things if we’re staying there. Sleeping bags. You know.’

Touga makes a detour to the kitchens first to steal a small bottle of olive oil. He’s not sure yet whether he intends to have sex tonight, but if he makes up his mind later he wants to be prepared and he’s only self-lubricating during heat. He stashes it behind a rack of bokkens and settles down to wait.

Saionji arrives with a huge bag which does contain two sleeping bags, but also contains what must be every blanket and cushion in his dorm. Including a pillow which smells of him strongly enough that it must have come straight off his bed. Saionji blushes when Touga pulls it out and it would be easy to tease him for giving in to his instincts enough to include it, except then Touga would have to act above indulging his own. He nuzzles it instead, watching Saionji’s blush deepen, and realises he’s never had an Alpha bring him nesting material before.

Touga unzips the sleeping bags until they can be treated like blankets and lays them out as a base. He doesn’t bother to pick a corner to nest in, this whole place feels like a burrow, like a shelter, and in a more practical sense Saionji has the key to the dojo in his pocket. It’s soothing, to let his hands move without conscious thought, wrapping blankets around the edge of his nest to hold the cushions that make up the centre, arranging and rearranging until he feels satisfied. He puts Saionji’s pillow on the top layer, where he can curl up with his head on it, and smiles at Saionji, who is watching him with a strangely awestruck expression.

‘Come here,’ Touga says. ‘It’s big enough for two.’ If only just, Saionji didn’t have _that_ many cushions in his dorm.

Saionji lowers himself into the nest very carefully, apologising when he dislodges a cushion, until Touga pulls him down and arranges him like another pillow. When he’s got Saionji situated comfortably Touga curls up with his head on Saionji’s chest. Saionji’s heart is beating like a drum.

‘You’ve never been in a nest before, have you?’ Touga says.

Saionji shakes his head, chin brushing the top of Touga’s head. ‘Have you had people in your nest before?’ he asks.

Touga laughs. ‘I nest when I’m in heat, Saionji.’

‘…Oh.’ The word is almost a breath.

Touga stretches slightly. Saionji’s tense beneath him, afraid of getting this wrong, but Touga’s more relaxed than he’s been in a long time. Even the fear and sorrow of the night’s vigil seems to be distant here, something he can deal with when he’s ready. ‘Never an Alpha, though,’ he says. ‘I think the Betas I invited found it… exotic. Kinky.’ Saionji understands in a way they couldn’t, in the way he’d understood that Touga would want to nest tonight when he’s not even near heat. It’s not a sex thing, it’s a way to feel safe when he’s vulnerable.

‘Touga,’ Saionji says, the name soft on his lips. ‘Is tonight… just being here with you is enough, but I want to know…’

‘I hadn’t decided.’ There’s a luxury in that, in being able to invite someone into his nest and still not decide whether or not he’s going to have sex with them. He tilts his head up and nuzzles the underside of Saionji’s chin, hearing Saionji’s sharp intake of breath.

‘Can I touch you?’ Saionji asks in a rush.

‘Go ahead.’ Touga smiles lazily against Saionji’s chest. ‘We can see where it goes.’

Saionji’s hands brush and hover, tracing Touga’s outline, making it clear that no matter how much he wants to touch he doesn’t really have any idea what to do. It’s barely tangible through Touga’s clothes.

‘You can touch me more than that,’ he says, making Saionji frown at his amusement. ‘At least undress me.’

‘If you want your shirt off, you could do it yourself,’ Saionji says.

‘True.’ Touga opens his shirt and arches up from the cushions, making a show of shucking it off, before throwing it out onto the dojo floor.

Saionji’s pupils are wide when Touga looks up.

Touga reaches out and undoes Saionji’s shirt, sliding his hands across Saionji’s chest. Saionji makes a soft sound, high and held in his throat, and lunges forward. His mouth lands on Touga’s cheek, an eager, openmouthed kiss, which quickly becomes a trail of them, moving down Touga’s jaw with puppyish enthusiasm. Touga can hear every intake of Saionji’s breath, sharp as if he’s trying to inhale him. The kisses become nips and nuzzles across Touga’s throat, and Touga leans back with a whine of encouragement as Saionji’s teeth dig into the hollow of his shoulder.

Saionji leans back panting. ‘Was that…’

‘Yes, do it again.’ Touga grabs the back of Saionji’s head, hands catching in his hair, and guides him back down to bite, just hard enough to be bruising, where the touch of it on already tender skin is enough to make Touga buck up against him. They’re both hard through their pants and the contact is a starburst of sensation.

Saionji’s gasping and Touga needs to catch his breath himself before he can say in a strained voice, ‘I brought lube.’

He has to leave the nest to reach it and he’s not careful, scattering cushions as he crawls out to kneel on the floor and stretches to snag the bottle with his fingertips. Saionji crawls out after him and wraps around him where he kneels, kissing the back of Touga’s neck while his hands smooth across Touga’s chest and stomach as if he wants to touch all of him at once. Touga drops the olive oil beside them and turns in Saionji’s arms, tugging at his hair and running fingernails along his spine.

They’re rutting against each other through their trousers, a rolling instinctive motion that Touga has to wrench himself away from in order to undo their flies, hands fumbling in the dark space between them. Saionji’s cock, when it comes free, is already swelling slightly at the base, and for the first time since deciding to indulge his instincts Touga hesitates.

‘Can you pull out before you knot, do you think?’ he asks.

Saionji has to blink away the dazed darkness in his eyes before he can answer, hands on Touga hesitant again. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never… not with another person. I might not realise in time.’

Touga whines with frustration, aimed more at himself than Saionji. He doesn’t want to _stop_. He’s done this before anyway, it’s not that big a deal, and he grabs the bottle. ‘Never mind,’ he says, breathlessly.

‘Sorry,’ Saionji says. ‘…Do you want to be on top?’

Touga fumbles the bottle, startled by the offer. ‘Would you enjoy that?’ It’s himself he’s indulging tonight, Touga’s not going to pretend otherwise, but he does want Saionji to like it.

‘I… I liked it okay when I tried with…’

Saionji’s blushing as he stumbles over his words and when Touga suggests ‘…Cucumbers?’ he turns bright red and nods sheepishly. Touga grins. ‘You know you can get toys for that.’

‘Those are for Omegas!’ Saionji protests and Touga laughs, wrapping his arms around Saionji and stifling it aganst his neck. Saionji sighs. ‘…I’m not much of an Alpha, I guess.’

‘Of course you are,’ Touga murmurs, nuzzling him. ‘You’re taking care of me, aren’t you?’

Saionji hugs him crushingly, pressing as if he wants to imprint not the moment but Touga into his heart, and when he does draw back it’s only far enough to kiss him, teeth pressing against Touga’s lip but not quite biting. Touga kisses back with less urgency but more skill, coaxing Saionji’s tongue into his mouth until they’re both flushed and breathless.

Touga strips his trousers off with a practiced motion that Saionji tries to imitate and then they’re both naked on the dojo floor, glistening with sweat and smelling of each other as strongly as themselves.

It’s easy to push Saionji back onto the floor and snag one of the scattered cushions to wedge under his ass. Saionji gasps when Touga slides slick fingers into him and Touga’s done this before, but not with an Alpha, not with someone whose scent is telling him he could melt beneath them. He leans forward as his fingers find a lazy rhythm, licking a trail across Saionji’s chest, melting languid over him as Saionji’s hands stroke from Touga’s hips to the small of his back and Saionji throws his head back to voice his pleasure.

Penetration makes Saionji grit his teeth, too tense to enjoy it even as his tightening around Touga sends spasms of warmth through Touga’s belly. Touga leans forward again, feeling Saionji’s cock trapped hard and swollen between them. He writhes, putting more pressure on it, making Saionji’s eyes go wide.

‘Relax,’ Touga whispers. ‘Just enjoy it.’

‘Easy for you to… to, ah, say,’ Saionji retorts, but he’s unclenching as he gets used to the sensation.

Touga moves his hips and Saionji, shifting from nervous to impatient with customary speed, wraps his legs around Touga’s waist and pulls him in all at once. His hands press into the small of Touga’s back as he raises himself, and Touga guides his head to the shoulder he didn’t bite earlier, shuddering when the gentle graze of teeth sends a shock of heat down his spine to his groin.

Touga thrusts, driving himself closer to the edge, and feels Saionji’s teeth dig in a little more when he finds the right angle. They rut together, rhythm going from controlled to ragged, Touga’s hand reaching down between them as he feels Saionji’s knot forming, to rub carefully over the tight roundness of it. Touga comes first in a shuddering rush, keening and trembling with it. Saionji follows suit as Touga starts to pull out, come spurting between them and onto the wooden floor. Saionji falls backwards, gasping with pleasure, his cock still hard, fully knotted and leaking come. Touga keeps his hand around it, stroking tenderly as the longer, less intense orgasm sets in.

He reaches for the lube again, body so lazy movement takes attention, and pours some onto Saionji’s hand before pulling it around him and towards his ass. Saionji slides his fingers in tentatively and Touga wriggles back onto them, the feeling of being filled completing the calm, overwhelming pleasure. It feels good to lie like this, able to move but content to stay, safe and warm and wanted.

When the second orgasm ebbs Touga realises what a mess they are, sweaty and almost glued together with Saionji’s come. Touga heaves a sigh, half of contentment half of resignation to getting up and showering. There’s no dignity in the aftermath of sex. He sits up and stretches, turning to find Saionji gazing at him as if he’s still the most beautiful thing imaginable.

‘That was…’ Saionji says, faltering.

Touga smiles at him. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It was.’

Touga takes his time in the dojo showers, luxuriating in warm water on tired muscles and finger combing his hair while cursing himself for not bringing a hairbrush. When he returns to the dojo Saionji’s found a bucket and cloth and is cleaning up the mess they made, still naked and damp from the shower. Touga rebuilds his nest, minus the soiled cushion, and drapes himself comfortably in it. There would be worse things, he finds himself thinking, than having an Alpha willing to clean up after him.

Saionji joins him in the nest, less anxious about disturbing it now as he lies down. He smells of soap, clean and fresh, but Touga can smell the lingering scent of his pheromones in the air. They curl around each other, taking a moment to shift cushions and figure out the placement of elbows and knees. As soon as they settle Touga's already drifting towards sleep.


End file.
